The present invention relates to a tool and method for placing small objects and particularly to a tool having an adhesive tip suitable for use in medical or dental procedures.
Various devices have been developed for holding and placing small objects during dental and medical procedures none with completely satisfactory results. Placement of objects is sometimes attempted through use of the physician's or dentist's gloved fingers, but this is clumsy, particularly when a small object must be aligned to fit in a particular position within a confined space. However, the gloves are disposable, thus reducing the risk of transferring infection.
Tweezers are sometimes employed, but again, because two opposed faces on the object are required for proper grasping, alignment is difficult; the object may inadvertently drop past a recessed location rather than in the location, and there is a significant risk that the object will be swallowed or aspirated if the object drops in the patient's throat. Furthermore, delicate items, such as thin porcelain veneers that are used to overlay a patient's natural teeth, are frequently broken when being handled by the use of tweezers.
The increasing presence of incurable diseases has caused heightened concern about the transfer of infection in the workplace, particularly in the medical or dental specialties where internal procedures may greatly increase the risk of transferring infection between patients. To aid in preventing such infections, medical and dental tools are routinely sterilized. The tools must be collected after each use, sterilized in an autoclave or similar device, and then sorted and replaced so that each storage cabinet has a full set of tools. Valuable staff time is consumed during such procedures and it is desirable to minimize the number of tools requiring such treatment.
Convenient manipulation of small objects is provided by specialized holding tools having adhesive tips that require only one available face of the object to achieve proper gripping. The remaining faces of the object are then engageable with the walls of the location before the object has been released from the tool, thereby preventing inadvertent dropping.
As disclosed in Seidler U.S. Pat. No. 4,073,530, one type of such tool relies on an elastic adhesive tip having a flat or slightly projecting forward bonding surface with angular shoulders. During release of the object from the tool, the elastic adhesive snaps away from the object as the forward bonding surface is rolled along the object towards the angular shoulders. To ensure that the forward bonding surface is level in relation to the placed object, when the handle is at a convenient angle in the patient's mouth, an angular bend may be provided in the handle, or the tip end may be oriented at an angle to the handle. Because several objects might require placement at several different locations inside an individual patient's mouth, it is advantageous to have on hand a variety of such tools, having bends in their handles or tips oriented at a variety of angles, to obtain the most convenient angle of access into the mouth for that location. It is also convenient that such tools be equipped with a variety of tip sizes. While large tip ends, providing large forward bonding surfaces, are useful for larger or heavier items, smaller bonding surfaces are needed for smaller items where overhanging tip surfaces would hide a small object or impede its progress into a recessed location. Such variety of tools, however, increases the time associated with sterilization procedures and with tool selection. Furthermore, it is difficult to apply heat to such elastic tips, for the purpose of sterilization, without stiffening, cracking, or degrading the bonding strength of the tip. Washing at cooler temperatures is possible, but does not ensure the absence of contamination.
An alternative type of holding tool relies on a rigid adhesive stick. Rather than attempting sterilization of the adhesive tip, the used portion of the rigid stick may be broken off and the newly exposed portion of the stick may be shifted into appropriate position by sliding the stick down a hollow chamber in the handle. Such an arrangement is disclosed in den Hamer U.S. Pat. No. 3,797,875. The rigidity of the stick, however, increases the likelihood that breakage will occur to delicate objects as the stick is pressed against such objects to establish a bond. Furthermore, as was true with tools using elastic tips, to reach a variety of internal locations with objects of varying size one may require a number of such tools having varying handle shapes and tip sizes, thereby increasing the time expended for sterilization and tool selection. Specific adhesive materials that have been identified for use with holding tools include silicone-based materials providing elastic tips, as described in Seidler where the tip reverts quickly back to its original shape after deformation. Synthetic rubbery adhesives have been used to provide solid stick-like tips as described in den Hamer. Brittle stick-like adhesive tips have been formed from beeswax, as described in den Hamer, or a mixture of paraffin and petroleum wax, as described in Barouh et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,974,539. Attempts have been made to adapt various types of sealing adhesives or softer waxes for use as a tip material for similar tools, but sealants harden rapidly into a rigid unworkable condition and softer waxes have generally been found to lose their stickiness after only a brief period of manipulation. Conventional flexible adhesive tapes appear to maintain their stickiness with use, but frequently such materials do not release easily from the object and often leave a sticky film thereon that requires alcohol or other hazardous solvents for removal.
What is needed, then, is a more practical tool, and a method for its use in sterile conditions, for handling small objects and precisely placing such objects at locations internal to a patient.